On the 2nd February he reduced the fort of Timmary on the Coromandel coast, and pushing on to Arcot, the capital, opened his batteries and dug his approaches within sixty yards of the glacis. The garrison, which consisted of 250 French with 300 sepoys, defended the place until the 10th, when they surrendered as prisoners of war, delivering up twenty-two pieces of cannon and a large store of warlike munition.
Thus the campaign ended gloriously for Britain by the conquest of Arcot, and by hemming up the indefatigable but most unfortunate Lally in the fortifications of Pondicherry, the capital of French India, which was soon fated to become the last scene of his valour and achievement.
Surat, a place of great consequence on the coast of Malabar, was taken by a Bombay detachment, which destroyed the French factory. The English had obtained a settlement there from King Jehan Jeer in the year 1020 of the Hijerah. By sea the operations had been carried on with equal vigour. On the 4th September, 1759, an engagement had taken place between the fleets of Count d'Aché and Admiral Pocock, who obliged the former to sheer off with great loss. In April, the fortress of Karical had fallen, and by that time Admirals Pocock and Cornish had united their fleets in the roads of Pondicherry, within the gates of which nearly all that remained of the French forces in India were shut up, or encamped four leagues in front of it, under the command of the Count de Lally, barring the way by which he knew the British would march to an attack.
In Karical 174 pieces of cannon were taken, and to add to the disasters of the French, one of their 64-gun ships (the _Haerlem_) was burned in the roads of Pondicherry by the British cruisers.
Encouraged by his long career of success, and by the pecuniary and political embarrassments of his enemy, Colonel Coote resolved on investing Pondicherry. The approach of the rainy season, together with the well-known reputation for skill, bravery, and resolution enjoyed by the general of the now almost ruined French India Company, caused a regular siege to be considered impracticable; "it was therefore determined," says the Sieur Charles Grant, "to block up the place by sea and land."